Jeff James

Jeff James is industry news analyst for Windows IT Pro. He was previously editor-in-chief of Microsoft's TechNetMagazine, was an editorial director at the LEGO Company, and has more than 15 years of experience as a technology writer and journalist.

Articles

The most prominent aspect of Windows 8 is the new Metro UI design approach. Features in Windows 8 Enterprise Edition include the "boot from a USB stick" capability of Windows To Go, VDI enhancements, and updated Windows 8 app deployment and software assurance changes.

With the annual security circus known as the RSA Conference starting this week, I felt it would be appropriate to highlight some of the best free security tools and services that my fellow editors and external security experts have found invaluable to help them do their jobs. The result is this baker's dozen-sized list of free security tools, utilities, and resources that every system administrator may find useful.

Microsoft hosted a hands-on workshop on System Center 2012 and the Private Cloud in mid-January. Windows IT Pro staffers Jeff James, Michael Otey, and Sean Deuby attended. They discuss their impressions of the licensing changes for System Center; the ability to create private clouds with Virtual Machine Manager (VMM); and new features and components such as App Controller for rolling out applications, Service Manager to create service requests, and Orchestrator for automating workflows.

We recently received a Samsung Galaxy S II Android phone (running on T-Mobile's 4G network) in for review at the Windows IT Pro editorial offices, so I decided to post some early photos and first impressions. We'll post our full review in the next week or two.

Malware authors are constantly exploring new ways to get past security safeguards, and keeping track of the what, when, and how of malware attacks can be problematic, especially for organizations required to operate under restrictive auditing, compliance, and governance requirements. Security vendor Sourcefire thinks they have a solution to that problem with their new FireAMP product, which was announced earlier this week.

Whether you have a single-person blog or manage a sprawling web operation with dozens of contributors, keeping that website available for your readers and secure from hackers can sometimes be an arduous task. That's a problem that Incapsula and company co-founder Marc Gaffan hope to solve.

Microsoft's recent 10 year anniversary for Windows XP was a widely-heralded event, and accolades freely flowed for Microsoft's longest lived OS ever. Sadly, Microsoft's efforts at highlighting the commendable track record of XP were overshadowed by overly zealous efforts by various Microsoft spokespeople to drive customers off Windows XP and onto Windows 7.

Paul Thurrott demonstrates Windows 8 on the tablet in this edition of Windows IT Pro Insider. Along with Sean Deuby, Michael Otey, and Jeff James, Paul walks through the touch-screen interface and the start menu.

The new iPhone 4S started shipping in volume this week, and I was one of the customers who opted to upgrade to Apple's latest smartphone. I've been using an iPhone 3GS as a personal phone for several years, and also had been using a Motorola Droid X as my primary work phone. I thought it was time to upgrade, so I opted for the iPhone 4S.